Heaven Can Wait
by Herrlichkeit
Summary: The war between the Kadzaits and the Fifteens finally reaches its turning point when the Mascot is kidnapped and killed. The only thing is the job isn't finished. On the verge of death Cailean is saved by young Tate, a girl opposed to the horrors of guns.
1. Devil in Disguise

_Disclaimer:_ I do not claim ownership over Wolf's Rain, any cannon characters who may make an appearance or the Wolf's Rain universe. Any characters who are created in this story are strictly figments created for this story.

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_Notes:_ This story takes place after the conclusion of the anime Wolf's Rain and in the modern suburban time period.

Songs are written in throughout the story to help maintain the appeal and flow of the chapter. (You should listen to them. =3)

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**Chapter One**

_Devil in Disguise_

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_Song: _Shutting Down Grace's Lab_ by James Horner in the Avatar Soundtrack

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They say that wolves are destined to open the gates of Paradise. They say that only they are capable of entering the world beyond those gates; a world that is meant to be a better place.

It's a world where the days are warm and pleasant and the sun shines high in the sky, but not too brightly. It's a world where the nights are cool and smell strongly of damp earth. It's a world where the fireflies come out and set the petals of flowers and blades of grass aglow and tiny mimicries of them skate along beneath them on the water.

Paradise is a world where the game is slow and fat and the water is never polluted. It is a world where the crickets sing long into the day and the butterflies dance long into the night. The stars swarm the skies until the constellations overlap and the days are neither too hot nor too cold. Only wolves may partake of this world, and only they may find the path that leads there.

The only thing is…I don't ever want to find Paradise.

I like my world, and I like it just the way it is. Cobwebs of cracks run the length of every sidewalk, or jut up where the old oaks protest to their confinement. Squat little houses sink a few inches every year and the wayward winds rip up their tiles. Uptown the alleyways are wide enough to walk two abreast, and dark enough to hide the secrets of the city. Graffiti art overtakes any free space from billboards to restaurant walls and tagging scrawls gang territory on every overpass and stop sign.

The dealers haggle in bullets or not at all; the addicts worm their way into the system, desperate for a fix; the drivers in the sharply angled yellow and black cars would sooner run you over just for the kick of it.

You're ten times more likely to slip in a puddle of oil rather than a puddle of water. Gobs of year blackened gum crust the sidewalk and the rats could very well make a snatch at young unattended children to carry them off and raise them as their own. Didn't you ever wonder how thugs were born? I suppose that now you know.

You could spend your days sleeping under newspaper, watching the world flicker by in smears of car-colored streaks. Or you could let your ambition drive you to clamber to the top of the gang system and to lord over the world below the guidelines of living.

Every gang has a set of rules and ours is no exception. There is a keen honor system here that an outsider would hastily overlook: you care for your kin and if someone saves your life you're indebted to them. That means closing your lips and doing time when they pry for names. It means sticking your hands in the sky or behind your back when they catch you. It means finding a metal bat or ending up in metal chains.

It's all about getting the job done here. Those who do it well are valued as the closest of brothers. You're held close like the big stick or the angry dog so your master has the benefit of having a crowd when he speaks. The only thing about this industry is the competition, and the larger the crowd that gathers the more competition you get.

Also…the larger the jealousy grows.

* * *

Song: _Why So Serious?_ The Dark Knight Soundtrack

* * *

The car door slammed shut behind them with a snapping click and the prisoner stumbled forward, shoved by his irate captor. Blinded by the coarse brown sack tied onto his head, his foot exchanged quick greetings with a sharp rock and he tumbled down. Unable to break his fall with his hands tied behind his back, he went down with a heavy thud. His groan was muffled and he curled in on himself. This time he didn't get back up.

"Finally staying down, eh?" grumbled his keeper, Jeric, who sported the stubble from a shaved head and a scowl that could have boiled water. He took his time loading the handgun as his comrade knelt beside their captive and yanked off the sack hood. He forced his prisoner's chin upward roughly so that he stared up at him.

"He's got green eyes," Benny noted curiously, as though murdering the competition was an everyday occurrence. Apparently it was, especially when you could just as easily excuse it for the recent popularity of capitalism.

"Weird," Jeric mumbled, glancing down at the defiant gaze staring back at them. "You sure this is the right one? He's sort of a kid."

"Boss said not to let that distract us." Benny grunted as he got up. "Stop staring at me," he snapped. When his prisoner didn't respond immediately, he snapped his leg out into his shoulder, which served the purpose of turning him away.

"Freaking me out," he grumbled. He turned away and slipped around the car to the trunk, touching his fingers to the inking of an XV on his wrist for good luck.

"Such a crybaby," Jeric mumbled as he planted his boot on the prisoner's chest to keep him from wriggling and throwing off his aim.

"Jeric, wanna help me figure this out first?" Benny asked from behind the car. Jeric grunted, furrowing his brow as he turned and followed after his comrade.

Cailean twisted on the ground, tucking his knees as close to his chest as he could manage. The wire bit into his wrists as he tried to squeeze them lower down his back, drawing the slick warmth of blood down his palms. He was keenly aware of the seconds as they ticked by—could hear their conversation as they argued about what font to use for the message they were about to send. His muscles creaked as he slipped his bound wrists past his feet, carefully ignoring the taste of blood as he chewed the wires into obedience. He fought with a wild desperation to untangle them.

"Just choose whatever. I'm going to take care of the whelp," he heard Jeric say. Time's up. He forced himself to his knees just as Jeric rounded the corner. "What the-" He stopped, confusion wrinkling his face. He had left a boy lying on the ground and returned to find a dog? "Ben-" he managed to yell before the dog lunged at him.

His teeth seized Jeric's arm—skin tore between his jaw and the taste of iron filled his mouth. He hadn't been fortunate enough to grab the right hand, though and the muzzle of the gun pressed against his chest. A single snarl of defiance escaped his throat before it went off.

He flopped to the ground, but never felt the rocks dig into the sides of the raw, broken skin of his wrists. He watched Jeric's wild eyes as his lips flapped wordlessly—or maybe he was speaking and he simply couldn't hear the exchange past the ringing in his ears.

"What the hell _is_ that thing?" Benny seemed on the verge of panic as he stared at the monstrosity. Jeric did his best to wrap his arm in a towel to staunch the bleeding. "That's one big ass dog!"

"That ain't no dog, Benny," Jeric said, his face uncharacteristically pale. The brown fur was matted with blood where the front legs were tied together with a crude wire, which had been bent as though chewed on.

"What is it then?" Benny wondered aloud. Jeric dared to venture forward, though only to nudge its limp haunches with the toe of his boot.

"I think it's a wolf," he said.

"I thought wolves were hunted to extinction?"

"I guess they missed some."

"Well…we know why they call him the Mascot, then," Benny said as he leaned over to peer at Jeric's arm. Jeric grunted, but quickly took a step back as the wolf growled. The sound was barely existent, but still there nonetheless.

"Can't believe it's not dead yet." He lowered his gun on the creature.

"Don't waste the ammo. It'll be dead soon anyways." Benny turned and slid into the driver's side of the car, starting up the engine with a low grumble. Jeric shrugged and found his seat on the passenger side and the tires crunched on the rocky path as they swung a u-turn and made their exit.

* * *

Song: _Catatonic_ by Hans Zimmer in the Sherlock Holmes Soundtrack

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"What is that?" Cailean struggled to open his eyes, but the world looked like it had been squished into a tunnel. Or maybe it didn't just look that way? Something smelled sweet, and it mixed pleasantly with the wet earth beneath his face and the scent of the tree roots that hovered over him. Hadn't he fallen in the middle of the road? Maybe he had crawled beneath a tree semi-conscious and fallen asleep.

"Mister Doggie? Are you alive?" He snapped back to focus, blinking away the bleariness. A heart-shaped face and its wide brown eyes stared in at him. A smile touched her bow-shaped lips when she realized that he was staring back.

"Oh, you're hurt!" Was that dismay in her voice? His nose wriggled, trying to catch the source of the sweet scent. It was captivating his limited capacity for attention at the moment and he wanted to ignore the persistent girl. There was a pressure on his head—or was that in it?—that slid down across his ear and back up again. The air felt lighter; the scent of the earth was less than it had been. He pulled his lips back and did his best to growl—to appear fierce and unyielding. He _was_ the Mascot after all.

Tate hesitated, feeling the slight vibrations that signified the dog's response. Dogs didn't purr, so he must have been growling. A frown marked her pink lips and she gently lifted his head off of her lap and slipped out from under it. Wadding up her blue cardigan, she tucked it under his head. She had to find him some help.

Her yellow and purple-laced tennis shoes carried her across an unmarked path through the trees, up the rocky slope that signified the edge of the town's limits and straight to the doctor's house. Balling her hand into a fist she rapped on the door. It opened before she had had the chance to finish the customary three beats.

"Tate? What're you doing up so late?" Doctor Mockic rubbed his eyes and focused on her, trying to glean some manner of information from her expression.

"Mr. Mockic, I found a dog and he's hurt. Can you help him?"

"One of the village dogs?" Tate shuffled her feet and folded her hands behind her back, her eyes swinging down to the porch floor.

"No," she mumbled. "I found him out by the road."

"Tate!" the doctor sighed exasperatedly. "That's beyond the town limits. You _know_ what your father said about that."

"But he's _hurt_ Mr. Mockic! Please help him!" She peered up at him from beneath her lashes—Daddy had always had trouble saying no when she did that. He said it was something her mother had passed on to her.

"Oh, alright," the doctor sighed after a few moments of silence. Pulling his jacket off of one of the hangers he slid it on and snatched up his medical bag. He clicked off the lights and shut the door behind him softly. "I'll see what I can do."

Tate tried to keep herself from cheering—they still had to find the dog again, after all. She slid down the slope and dashed into the trees.

"Wait up, Kiddo! These old lungs ain't what they used to be," she heard the doctor huff behind her. She obliged, though really she wanted to kick up her heels and get back to the dog as fast as she could.

He was still lying where she had left him, despite her panic. Part of her worried that he might have died while she was gone. She quickly kneeled down next to him and put her hand over his mouth and felt the gentle warmth of his breath tickling the palm of her hands.

"He's still alive," she said with a grin as Doctor Mockic sidled up to her, his bones creaking and snapping as he knelt down next to her.

"But not for much longer," he said breathlessly, and her smile faded.

"Save him!" Tate demanded, grabbing a hold of Mockic's arm and staring up at him. "Please," she added unhappily.

"Tate, you're too sensitive. You can't save every animal that dies, you know. Death happens. It's natural."

"But guns _aren't_," she shouted, in spite of herself, and tears formed in her eyes. "Someone shot him, Mockic," she whispered as her fingers brushed the blotched brown fur that matted around the bullet's entrance. "Shot him and left him to die." Her fingers crept across the mud black fur on the dog's crown. A droplet quivered on her lashes to plop on his temple and bead on his fur. The silence crept in; uncomfortable and surreal all at once.

"Alright," the doctor finally said. "I'll do my best, Tate."

"You'll save him?" she asked quietly, her brown eyes flickering up at him from beneath her eyelashes. Mockic sighed mournfully and glanced down at the dog. It was certainly a beast of a canine. Perhaps that was why it was still alive; perhaps it could pull through, after all.

"Yes, Tate," he answered. "I'll save him."


	2. Up is Down

_Disclaimer:_ I do not claim ownership over Wolf's Rain, any cannon characters who may make an appearance or the Wolf's Rain universe. Any characters who are created in this story are strictly figments created for this story.

* * *

_Notes:_ This story takes place after the conclusion of the anime Wolf's Rain and in the modern suburban time period.

I took out the songs for this chapter to get it up faster, however, if you would like me to continue putting songs in then I will.

* * *

**Chapter Two**

_Up Is Down_

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_Time likes to play cruel practical jokes on us.

Like the fact that if you sleep for too long it seems to have just as adverse of an effect on you as if you had slept too little.

There once was a jokester who liked to say that time could heal all wounds.

* * *

"What's that?" Cailean twisted around, clenching the paintbrush in his fingers as Neil leaned in through the open crack of the doorway.

"What's what?" Cailean asked. Neil gestured to the canvas draped board perched on the makeshift easel set before him. He probably meant the cardboard plate with its large daubs of acrylic paint that was supposed to work as his palette as well, but Cailean decided he would play dumb for as long as he could get away with it. "Gesture all you want, but it doesn't mean anything until you start being more specific." He sniffed, catching the mixed scent of cigarette smoke, gunpowder and musk that was Neil's scent as he slid the brush down across the canvas, laying a thick line of almost-but-not-quite-black-brown.

"Shut up, would you?" Neil groaned, kicking the door shut unceremoniously behind him. "And you know what I mean. I thought Jay said no more painting?"

"When did he say that?" Cailean frowned, pursing his lips into a disgruntled line. Neil snatched up one of the rickety old chairs that made up the basis of comfort in the Kadzait lair. He flipped it backwards, settling onto it and folding his arms over the top where he rested his chin.

"Come on, we both heard what he said." Neil scrunched up his face into a sour expression, pitching his voice into Jay's rough growl. "You stand for everything we fight for! Now tell me how a painter is supposed to symbolize us?" Cailean made an offensive sound in the back of his throat, setting down the cardboard palette and brush. Wiping his hands on a raggedy, oil-stained cloth, he tilted his head at Neil.

"It's not like I'm painting flowers, Neil."

"No, you're painting the city. Which doesn't make any sense," Neil snapped.

"Why not?" Cailean growled. He turned on his stool-which rocked uncomfortably on its uneven legs-and focused intently on Neil, who held his hands up helplessly.

"Don't look at me like that, man. You know it's not my fault what Jay decides. But why can't you just tag like the rest of them? Can't you be normal and paint an underpass or something?" Neil's brow furrowed and he leaned forward.

"I _have_ painted an underpass, though," Cailean answer, gesticulating to the stack of canvases in the corner. In that pile, somewhere, was a picture of a freeway underpass, minus the gaudy graffiti image of a Fifteen being stabbed in the ribs during a knife fight.

"You know what I mean," Neil said. Cailean hesitated before answering.

"I want to see the city without graffiti, Neil. Jay used to tell me stories about how clean it used to be. About how you could walk in the streets without getting attacked. How folks didn't used to be so scared. I wish I could have seen it before the Fifteens moved in…" Cailean trailed off and reached out to brush his fingers over the dried surface of the picture. Jay had told him that at one time, walls were clean and neat, plumbing didn't spit brown rust and people weren't afraid to make eye contact and smile. He had never seen that world, but he could imagine it enough to put the works on canvas. Maybe that was why Jay hated him painting so much—because it reminded him of what used to be.

"Look, the only way you and I will ever see the city like that is in your paintings," Neil spat. Cailean jerked, as though his voice had been a physical blow. Neil looked sorry for it, but all he could manage was an apologetic shrug. "Maybe you _should_ keep painting. Maybe one day we'll see the city like that… Until then…" His voice drifted off and he glanced up at the painting, for once sharing a curiosity that Cailean had harbored for the unknown for a lifetime.

"Do you think that after the Fifteens are gone we'll be able to rebuild the city? Jay says…" Cailean's voice was barely a whisper. He watched as a small spider crept along its silky web, repairing a spot that had been torn by too strong of a breeze that had pushed through the window and ripped it.

"Jay says a lot of things," Neil sighed, swinging off of his chair. He paused and reached out, perhaps hoping to pat Cailean on the shoulder and comfort him. He hesitated, retreated and disappeared towards the door. "Cailean?" The door creaked as he opened it and his fingers lingered on the knob, twitching uncomfortably.

"Yah?" Cailean didn't turn from the gobs and splotches of dyed canvas.

"Keep painting." The door snapped shut behind Neil and Cailean sighed. Only after he was gone did he turn to stare at the wood grain that closed off his room from the rest of the gang's hide out.

_Jay says a lot of things._

* * *

Cailean twisted in the first few glimpses of his fitful sleep, bringing a fresh wave of aggravation springing from the path the bullet had first parted the skin like a demure silk curtain and found a spot to make itself comfortable in the nerves in his shoulder. The pain crept along the backs of his eyelids in white hot circles that burnt through the thin membrane of his dream. It roused him from the drunken state of a pain filled slumber, ejecting him into a reality of a similar state of conscious.

Dust clogged his lungs and it smelled different from his memories of the city's diesel exhaust and the putrid stench of acrid waste. Most humans thought of clean as the tucked corners of a hospital bed and the gleaming silver trays of the offices. Yet clean felt like a good word to tag the homely room he found himself in, though it was certainly nothing akin to the stagnant sterility of the sharply angled hospital walls.

Cailean twisted around from where he lay on his side, determined that he would stand in spite of the brittle skin that stretched against the stitches in his shoulder. He grunted and pushed himself off of his knees, spreading his feet wide to keep from toppling. Cailean tipped his palm upright and studied the delicate lines marching along the folds on his hand, defining the creases of a palm so used to being spent closed in a fist. But when he told it to mimic the gesture it had known so well from life in the city, the fingers trembled ineffectually before snapping shut, like an iron bear trap. His lips twisted at the corners, dragged down by the weight of bewilderment. He couldn't control his hand?

It was at that moment that the dusty yellow sunlight slipped through the clouds and peeked in through the latticework windowpane, as though it were as curious of the latest occupant within as he was of his own circumstances.

Cailean hobbled to the window and paused at the sill. Carefully, he ran his fingers across the grain. It released a strange scent, which smelled almost spicy and clung to his fingertips. Somehow, in the back of his mind, it seemed familiar to him—something he couldn't quite begin to remember.

"Is this…wood?" he murmured. Wood wasn't a common ingredient to building houses in the city—not anymore at least. Was this the first time he had seen it? Regardless of the oddities of the dwelling he had found himself in, it was time to beat a hasty retreat.

Cailean ambled to the doorway, fumbled with the knob with his failing fingers and switched to his left hand. He jiggled the knob, managed to slip it down and shoved open the door.

To come face to face with a young girl. Her brown eyes widened in shock, her mouth working incredulously as she tried to form a coherent response to a stranger popping out of her home. Here, in her little town, a robber was not an occurrence to even think about. People left their doors unlocked, trusted one another and even knew names.

Memories of her face tickled at the edges of his mind. Had he met her before? She was clutching a brown bag in her arms, and squeezed it so tightly the apples she had bought from the store tumbled out and thudded hollowly onto the deck of the wooden porch. She managed a squeak in the back of her throat, as though she was hoping to say something to him.

"Please don't scream," he pleaded, lifting his palms to her to show that he held no weapons. But the gesture stretched at his shoulder and stung and he sucked in his breath, his hand flying to the stiff skin. Clutching at the sore wound stitched in his shoulder, he knew that he wouldn't win a fight if it came down to her gang versus him. Unfortunately, it was his voice that snapped her out of her stupor.

And she screamed.

* * *

He had once asked Jay what he had done for a living before the Fifteens had moved into the city. Jay had paused for some time, perhaps mulling over whether or not he wanted to offer that sort of knowledge freely. At the time, young as he was, Cailean had thought he might understand why the scruffy gang leader might not want to divulge himself as being anything other than the brazen man whose very presence prompted men to stutter. He had not fully understood, though, until Jay had explained it.

"I had always dreamed of having a flower shop," he had admitted with a shrug.

Of course, Cailean hadn't ever lived in a city where flower shops were still open. Jay had explained it—of how he had enjoyed putting together the arrangements and perfecting new bouquets of flowers. Putting together new arrangements, he had said, wasn't about coming up with a new design, but rediscovering it. Mother nature, he explained, was the best designer of all, and only she could make new designs.

Jay had always loved flowers. For him it was the opportunity to be surrounded by something that, no matter what happened around him, could never be polluted by the world around them.

That was until they had evicted his shop.

As the Fifteens terrorized the city, money became more and more scarce. Eventually they had closed his shop and he lost the business. Work was even harder to come by, and eventually he took to drug dealing and drinking just to get by.

But it wasn't the drugs that had landed him in jail.

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_Note:_ I hope that you enjoyed this chapter! Thank you for reading! 


	3. Runaway Train

_Disclaimer:_ I do not claim ownership over Wolf's Rain, any cannon characters who may make an appearance or the Wolf's Rain universe. Any characters who are created in this story are strictly figments created for this story.

* * *

_Notes:_ This story takes place after the conclusion of the anime Wolf's Rain and in the modern suburban time period.

I took out the songs for this chapter to get it up faster, however, if you would like me to continue putting songs in then I will.

* * *

**Chapter Three**

_Runaway Train  
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Her scream.

Like the sound of brakes clenching, tires scraping off rubber on asphalt. Like the haunting cackle of gunfire spat from the hungry muzzle of metal jaws. Like the crushing push of blood in your head, adrenaline threatening to burst you like the surfacing fizz in a bottle of booze.

But nothing lingers like the silence that follows.

On instinct he reached for her. She turned to run, at least some flicker of sense burning in her maddened mind, but even in his abused state he was faster than her.

He pulled her close and slapped his hand over her mouth. Her groceries tumbled to the ground, abandoned in the primordial flight response. She squirmed, doing her best to bellow through the palm of his hand, but all she managed to produce were the pathetic murmurs of a stifled animal.

"Shut up!" he growled, but it only served to break her down into wailing. She squinted her eyes, but she couldn't stop the tears from leaking out of the corners. They slid down her round cheeks before seeping underneath the palm of his hand, making his grip slick.

The little town that Tate had grown into may not have seen a generation of youth willing to sink cold steel in another man's back, but they were still a town of fighters—a town who faced up to the threat of bears and the attacks of wild dog packs without quailing.

Tate's scream sent doors flying open, rifles and shotguns hitched across their chests as they followed the path to the source of the outcry. Yet to see the stranger standing there holding the youngest member of their town as a hostage put a stutter in their steps. Cailean hobbled off of the slanted porch with her, holding her tight. The townsfolk gathered in a semi-circle—angry faces, angry fists. They watched with sharp, shrewd eyes, waiting for him to make a mistake as they crept in on him.

The crowd parted slightly, making room for a man to push himself forward in an old wheelchair whose tires squeaked everything third rotation. Cailean could tell that one leg was shriveled, perhaps from lack of use, the knobby knee sticking up through the pant leg. The other stopped short just after the knee, and the nub flexed with the contortions of the man's body as his arms worked the shaky tires.

"Let her go." His voice was gravelly, somehow matching the rough graying stubble on his chin, bushy brows and sagging brown eyes. Cailean's eyes flickered through the faces surrounding him, but there was none amongst them that seemed willing to grant leeway—no one who would hesitate to fire the second he gave them the chance. And if he let her go? Then they would hold all of the cards—guns and hostage alike.

"Look, I won't hurt you, I just want to get out of here. Call them off," Cailean whispered to her. She trembled in his arms, shaking like the flickering leaves on the old forest trees in an August wind. "Do you understand?" Tate didn't respond, but her red-rimmed eyes flashed towards him, watching him from beneath her soggy lashes, the whites showing like a cornered animal.

"Listen, Tate, it's going to be alright," said the man in the wheel chair. "You're going to be just fine." Cailean had no plans on taking her into the forest with him—he wanted nothing more than to escape. But how could this grizzled old, chair trapped man know anything about that?

"Just stay where you are and I promise I won't hurt her," Cailean growled from over her shoulder. He began to back away, though his eyes never strayed from the semi-circle of townsmen whose knuckles whitened on the stocks of their guns. He felt the ground carefully as he crept away, certain not to stumble on the dirt and gravel. Still they waited, bodies knotted, the corners of their eyes tight.

The landscape changed beneath his feet—from the crunching dirt to the springy, spongy feeling of wet grass. The forest yawned behind them, like a leafy green lion. It opened its mouth to allow them to pass through the jagged, bark covered teeth and swallowed them whole.

The villagers watched, unaccustomed to such a loss in their homely little town. They had been wronged, like the ace card shark cheated out of his money at his own table. They watched him go, anger in their eyes, sadness in the creases of their work worn wrinkles.

But they didn't follow

* * *

"Neil, what does this one mean?" Cailean held up his hand to show him the tattered little paper rectangles. Time had worn the white edges brown and the red and black a faded pink and gray, but Neil carried them anyways, calling them his 'lucky deck'.

"It means you should go all in," he grumbled from around his cigarette, plucking a card from his hand and setting it face down on the table for handing in on his turn. He reached up to scratch his chin thoughtfully, perhaps considering the possibilities that he held.

"Liar," Cailean scoffed.

"Then stop asking me," Neil answered with a grin. He plucked the cigarette from his lips, flicked the ashes nonchalantly onto the floor and downed a healthy gulp of golden whiskey from the bottle clutched unsteadily in his hands. How he managed to hold on to everything at once Cailean wasn't sure.

"You're the one who made me play."

"I wish you'd make your turn already," Neil griped.

"Well excuse me for considering my options." Neil glanced up from his cards, and the lines in his forehead deepened. The dim light of the flickering overhead bulb cast his blue eyes into shadow—the haunted expression looked strange for a normally cheery face. "What?" Cailean ventured.

"What are you, a scientist? Considering your options? We ain't got no options."

"I'm not, but I kind of wish I was," Cailean murmured. The soft beat of silence slipped by, noticed too much by those in the room.

"Why you gotta be so different from us, huh?" Neil asked. He had hushed his voice to keep the guys in the next room from overhearing—not that they could hear much over their own raucous cries that rose in time to the wins and loses of their teams.

"Because he's _not_ one of us, Neil. You know that, man," Caleb snapped. He slapped the five cards in his hand down onto the table, tired of staring at his hand and waiting for his turn. He couldn't have seen the way that Neil carefully refused to look at him—how his eyes met Cailean's and lingered; how his jaw tightened until the muscles in his neck looked like iron cords haphazardly wrapped in prickling flesh.

There are some moments when instinct grips the wisest—the instance that a dog makes eye contact, it's body squares off and it's mouth opens slightly; that split second when a car comes screaming around the corner in a flash of gaudy paint, brights outshining the street lights that stand like watching guardians.

It had been dangerous territory from the second that Jay had taken Cailean under his wing.

"Neil-" Cailean started.

"What does it mean to be one of us?" Neil asked. Cailean leaned in, straining to hear what he had said, but Caleb seemed to hear him just fine. Caleb narrowed his eyes, sensing the challenge, tasting the palpability of it. They didn't need Cailean to look for something to fight over, but he knew that he was fuel to the fire.

"It means to be a brother. It means _honor_," Caleb snarled, rising out of his chair. Neil didn't rise to meet him. His eyes still had not left Cailean's, and somehow that was more frightening than if he had broken into one of their normal fist fights.

"Honor, Caleb?" Neil snorted, shaking his head. Finally, he turned on Caleb and stood. The bottle of whiskey still dangled loosely in his fingers—comfortable, knowing. If it came to it Neil could have used anything as a weapon and the whiskey bottle seemed like too unfair of an advantage. "Who was it that pulled you out of the crash? Who was it that killed the guys that had you and brought you home? Who was it that took a _bullet_ to save your miserable fucking _life_?" His voice rose with each passing question until it rebounded off of the little square plaster walls.

Cailean turned away, trying not to look at the mounting argument, but he could see that the guys had muted the TV and turned towards the source of the racket. They didn't look amused—it was too common an occurrence to think it humorous. They were capable, quiet, waiting to make sure they weren't needed to intervene if one of them pulled heat.

Past them the team made a shot. The basketball rebounded off of the hoop and was caught by the opposite team member, who dribbled it back to the other side of the court.

Glass shattered, whiskey dribbled on the floor, the table legs screeched on the linoleum as it flipped. Poker chips clattered on the ground whimsically; cards fluttered to the floor, like fifty-two wingless little birds, where they died in silence.

* * *

He was bleeding and he knew it.

The stitches must have ripped, but somewhere along the way he had only just begun to feel it. They had stumbled across a road an hour ago and he had passed it by—it would do him no good if a crowd of angry townsfolk followed it and found that he had been dumb enough to walk on it the whole way.

There was no denying the usefulness of it now, though.

Eventually her hopeless sniveling had slid away into silence. His grip on her loosened the farther they went, and the less he cared about whether or not she stayed with him. They would be prepared to find him the next time, and a hostage would not do him as much good when the time came. Eventually, he barely held her wrist as they walked, weaving and winding in between the trees in search of a way out. He paused for a moment, and cast about the stark wilderness for some sign of differentiation.

"You're lost, aren't you?" It was the first time she had spoke and it sent his skin crawling, reminding him that he had endangered the life of another human being. He glared back at her, pursing his lips together in a tidy frown.

"I'm not… lost. I'm just…"

"What? Just _what_?" Tate quirked an eyebrow at him and barely managed to hide a cheeky grin.

"Admiring the view," he snapped. "I'm a tourist don't you know." Any direction seemed as good of a choice as the next, so he settled on a quick came of 'eeny-meeny' and headed towards a cluster stand of oaks that looked like it might be somewhat different from the next. He couldn't smell the city on the wind and he missed the familiar oil-stain scent of the lair.

"I don't see your camera and map," she retorted.

"A map? There's a map?" Cailean turned towards her, hopeful, at least, that there might be a way out of the nightmare.

"No," she admitted hesitantly, clutching her hands together and pressing her bow-shaped lips into a small pout. "But _I_ know the way back."

"Back? _Back_? Are you crazy? I'm not going _back_ there," Cailean barked, spinning away from her. A soft tug on his sleeve stopped him in his tracks, and he met her doleful eyes curiously.

"You're bleeding," she mumbled. He glanced down to the stain growing on his shirt and snatched his sleeve back from her.

"So?"

"Look, I know you don't like me, but…" Tate glanced down and wiggled her toes in her tennis shoes thoughtfully.

"But, what?" Cailean asked in spite of himself. He leaned forward, waiting for her response.

"But if you want to get out of here you're going to have to trust me," Tate said.

* * *

"What's wrong, Cailean?" Jay asked, leaning back in the patchy old office chair to watch the boy amble in, clutching a bag of frozen peas to his face.

"Caleb hit me," he mumbled, settling down on the floor next to Jay's seat as he often did when Caleb attacked him. The occasions were rare, but it wasn't getting hit that bothered him. Fighting back wasn't a problem, but Caleb said things.

"Let me see," Jay demanded. He reached out and pried the frozen bag away, lifting his brow and staring down at the battle wound. "Yah, he got you good, didn't he? Did you get him back?" he asked, turning back to the task he had been attending before he was interrupted.

"Yah."

"How?" Jay asked. He didn't look up from his work as he slid the oil cloth down his hand gun.

"I knocked his stupid baby teeth out. Now he has a stupid gap."

"Oh ho!" Jay broke into the rough growl of laughter that reminded Cailean of what it might be like to hear a Wolverine on Nitrous Oxide. It was enough for him to turn the office chair around and clap a heavy hand on Cailean's scrawny shoulder.

He could feel Jay's calluses through the cloth of his shirt, rough like everything else about the man. "Thattaboy!" he said through a yellowing smile. "Keep up the good work. Someday you'll be strong enough to be a symbol for us all." He turned back to his work, then, but his praise still rang in Cailean's ears.

He stood, leaving the bag of frozen peas behind, but hesitated to see the face peering in on them through the open doorway, his hazel eyes nearly hidden beneath his furrowed brow. Caleb's mouth was puckered as though he had bitten into a rotten fruit.

* * *

_Note:_ Thank you for reading the latest chapter of "Heaven Can Wait". I hope you enjoyed it and I'd love to hear feedback from you!


	4. Beware of the Boys

_Disclaimer:_ I do not claim ownership over Wolf's Rain, any cannon characters who may make an appearance or the Wolf's Rain universe. Any characters who are created in this story are strictly figments created for this story.

* * *

_Notes:_ This story takes place after the conclusion of the anime Wolf's Rain and in the modern suburban time period.

I took out the songs for this chapter to get it up faster, however, if you would like me to continue putting songs in then I will.

* * *

**Chapter Four**

_Beware of the Boys

* * *

_

"Where _are_ we?" Cailean grumbled. A bird twittered in the overhead canopy. Trapped within the emerald leaves that glowed from the golden light of a high noon sun, the sound echoed as if produced from every direction. It hadn't been the first time he had heard a bird in the forest, and yet his skin crawled as he glanced over his shoulder yet again. It only served to remind him of how vulnerable he was; how out of his element this wilderness was from the one he had been pulled out of.

"Would you just relax? We're almost to the river," Tate replied. She paused long enough to tug a rubber band off of her wrist and pull her hair out of her face—long, brown and straight; it reminded him somehow of 'liver chestnut', which he had heard people use before to describe a similar shade.

She was the contrast to him—vivid, colorful. Even her hair caught the sun and held on to it, like the cut facet of a greedy gem. While she seemed neat and tidy, everything about him was scruffy. He cut his hair with his knife, she probably had a barber. He had seen his own hair in the shop windows not broken or plastered with pink and yellow foreclosure notices. He hadn't known what color to call it because everything in the city looked grey to him, even his own translucent reflection.

"Ash brown," Neil had said. "Maybe a little black, too. Maybe we can get you a mirror sometime." They didn't keep mirrors in the lair for the same reason that all of the dishes were made of plastic.

Jay had a bad temper.

He caught the slightest whiff of water, then, and the gentlest murmurs of a rippling river crept against the edge of his senses. Even the dirt path of the game trail Tate had picked up changed in texture from a dusty feeling to the slight firmness of wet soil.

"And that would be the river?" he wondered out loud, though the question was more to himself than Tate. She glanced back at him, but didn't bother answering.

"You look like one," she said. Her voice caught him off of his guard, but not so much as what she had said. Cailean furrowed his brow and scratched absently at the stiff feeling in his shoulder.

"One what?"

"Someone from the city," she replied. Cailean lifted a brow, prompting her to continue and when she caught the expression she hurried to explain. "I've never seen one before. I mean, the town has its own power station and everything, so we don't _need_ to have anyone come in from the city. Not that we'd want them to any anyways. Dad says they're all troublemakers…" Tate let the thought hang in the air and Cailean shifted uncomfortably.

"He's probably right. I don't think I've met one who has good intentions," he added dryly. Tate paused at a break in the trail, where the road diverged. One side slithered away into the forest, the other twisted away and disappeared into waist-high shrubs.

"Yah, me neither," Tate said, and set off down the forested trail.

* * *

There was someone out there in the wide world who once found something interesting—that every human beings' fingerprints are unique to them and them alone.

He pressed his hands into the clay, shaping, molding it to try to find something recognizable in its midst. What would Jay like for a gift? He was a man who looked for the use in everything, so perhaps an item that would be useful to him would make a suitable present? And so he set about to molding his plate, leaving his little fingerprints in the colorless dough.

They say that fingerprints wear off with age, as though they slowly forget who they are, who they're meant to be. Like people, time wears them down until the ridges vanish; until they're smooth, flat and undefined.

He waited for it to dry, painted it with his silly scribbles and signed his name with a flourish. If Cailean could make Jay proud with his art, then so could he, right?

Caleb clutched his art to his chest and tapped lightly on the office door. When there was no response he pushed on it gently, sliding it open to see Jay sitting at his desk, his face folded in his hands. An envelope sat, freshly opened, at his elbow, the contents spread before him. But he wasn't looking at the papers. He wasn't looking at anything.

Caleb crept forward, knowing he should run. "Jay, sir?" He was just tall enough to see over the desk and read the heading line: Final Notice.

"Not now, Caleb."

"I just wanted to give this to you." He settled the lumpy clay plate onto the desk, scooting it forward amicably. Jay didn't bother to look up at the work he had done, and Caleb felt his heart sink. It wasn't Cailean's art, and it wasn't nearly as good. Jay wouldn't look at it—Jay wouldn't look at anything he had done. Caleb frowned, backing up to the doorway to pause in its frame. "Happy father's day, daddy" he murmured, and slipped away from the room.

Imprisoned by the knowledge that he could not afford to give his family the home they deserved, Jay peered at the gift from between his fingers. He was a man of unfathomable strength, unbridled power, unwavering respect.

Which is why he could not have let Caleb see him cry.

Jay reached forward with trembling fingers to touch the rough edge of the makeshift little plate. Tiny fingerprints glowed in the dim light, trapped in the artwork for as long as it remained, like a little imprint of Caleb's innocence.

Jay smiled.

* * *

"I'm kind of jealous." Tate was the first to prompt conversation, as per the usual. Cailean pushed through the last of the scrub and glanced at her, eyes narrowing in contemplation of what she had said.

"Of what?" he ventured cautiously.

"Your eyes." He felt his tongue slide into a series of slippery knots, his jaw working to form an answer to what she had said. She heard his silence and turned back, unabashed to stare him in the face. He glowered at her to hide his confusion, hoping she had not seen his uncertainty. "No one in our town has blue eyes. There's green and hazel. Oh, yah, lots of brown." Tate harrumphed noisily as she picked a rock off of the riverbank and hopped onto it, catching her balance quickly lest she splash into the fresh mountain river.

Cailean paused at the edge of the water and stared down at it, at once alarmed and intrigued.

"It's so clear," he mumbled, reaching down to brush his fingers into the chilly depths.

"Yah, most of the rivers are like that," Tate said.

"Not where I come from." She stopped in her tracks, and backtracked on her path to pause and kneel down beside him on the riverbank.

"What's it like?" she asked. He turned to stare at her, his eyes blank as he waited for her to clarify. "The city, I mean. What's the city like?"

"Oh, that? It's dirty," Cailean said, turning back to the river. "Everything's dirty. The buildings, the water, the people." _Even the art._ He should come to expect that, though. If art was meant to reflect the people who made it then he should come to recognize the fact that none of the art in a city of unclean people could be anything but.

"That sounds terrible. Why would you want to go back?"

"There are people there…" he didn't bother to finish.

"Who love you?" she asked.

"No, they're my family." Tate furrowed her brow and stared at him incredulously.

"I don't get it. Isn't family supposed to love you?" Cailean turned to meet her eyes—wide, brown, a naiveté unsurpassed by anyone he had met in the untamed depths of the city. For a moment she seemed to stare at him through a tunnel, from a world beyond the roots of a tree, in a thought lost to memory. Then she was there again, on the bank of the river, waiting for his answer.

"The people who love you aren't always the same as your family."

* * *

There were people in the house, and they weren't the people who belonged.

Cailean could feel it in the most remote corners of his mind and in the prickling sensation of his hair rising on end. Then came the strange scent of tobacco smoke and gunpowder.

They were playing cops and robbers in the back of the shop with Neil just barely finishing the code to crack the safe when the front door opened, bringing with it the foreign smell and a tension that crackled along the ceiling and followed in their waking steps. Their heavy boots resounded on the hardwood floors, giving off the soft creak of new leather and shoe polish.

"Isn't the shop closed?" Neil asked, dropping the stethoscope they had robbed from a back drawer, thinking it had looked like an ideal prop for breaking into a bank.

"I don't know, let's check it out," Cailean said, following the trail of curiosity that lead him to the back door to the shop's storeroom.

"You guys, we should stay here," Caleb interjected. He spread his hands across their makeshift bank safe and slid behind it, as though the cardboard box between him and the door would do him much good in the event of an emergency.

"You're such a pussy," Neil scoffed. Cailean glowered at him and kicked him in the shin. "Ow! What was that for?" Neil snapped, clutching at his leg.

"Jay said not to use words like that."

"Well, maybe he shouldn't act like one," Neil countered.

"Come on, let's go," Cailean said, grabbing Neil by the sleeve and tugging him through the swinging door.

Outside in the shop, surrounded by a colorful array of blues, reds and pinks and the sweet fragrance of flower pollen, Jay stood by a group of men, speaking hotly and gesturing widely. The men leaned in, interested in, as though interested in his broad gesticulation. The smell of tobacco smoke and gunpowder was stronger out here, out competing and overpowering the perfume of the flowers and it was starting to make Cailean feel a bit dizzy.

And then one of the men seemed to separate himself from the conversation, like a radio that had suddenly received a different signal, turning his attention on the two boys huddled by the store room door.

"He's seen us!" Neil cried and ducked back through the door. But Cailean stood, locking eyes with his opponent, feeling the challenge in that stare. There was something musky about his smell—something feral that did not belong in the business suit that did little to trap him inside its threads.

He was jostled by something, breaking his concentration on the man, and Neil pulled him back inside the safety of the back room.

"Are you crazy?" he snapped at Cailean. "What were you thinking? Those guys are bad news." Cailean glanced up at Neil and blinked, trying to steady himself back into reality.

"You think so?"

"Yah, but don't worry. Jay will take care of them. He always does." But from that day the smell of tobacco smoke and gunpowder lingered, like the sweat on your sheets after a bad dream. In the house, in the shop—wherever Cailean went, somehow he could still smell it.

* * *

"Look! There's the road!" Tate broke into a jog, jostling through underbrush and young saplings to reach the path. It was little more than a dirt trail, not even fit for someone to bike on, but it was better than the unpleasant trail blazing that they had undertaken for the past few hours after she had lost the road.

Or the road had lost her, as she claimed.

"Go where no one else has gone and leave a trail," she had chirped happily to his disgruntled aching. "Or something like that."

At least he could agree with part of her theory. If they were going to go where no one else had gone, it would be best to leave a trail. That way someone could find their mangled corpses and bring them back.

Now Tate hovered on the trail, looking one way and the next like a broken wind up toy. Finally, she sighed and turned back to him, spreading her hands out wide.

"Well, I _know_ that if we go to the right we'll get to the town within an hour," she said.

"And the left?" Tate shrugged, scrunching her mouth on one side as she furrowed her brow into a disgruntled little 'v' shape.

"I've never gone that way before. But listen—maybe they'll understand if we go back to the town? They're nice people. If I explain, maybe they'll even help you get back to the city?"

"Not a chance," he snapped, turning on his heel to start down the path to the left.

"No, wait! We can figure something out!" Tate cried, jogging lightly behind him to catch up.

Cailean opened his mouth to tell her exactly what he thought of her plan, but the words never found their way out. A low growl filled the forest, and he stopped so suddenly that she bounced off of his back and stumbled, nearly falling in the process of regaining her compromised balance.

"What is it?" she asked, watching him quirk his head to the side and listen intently to the woods. It came again, this time louder and given strength by the rise of more than one voice. It was all the warning they got before the dogs leapt from the brush, teeth catching the last dappled rays of sunlight.

* * *

_Note:_ I hope you guys enjoyed Chapter 4! I'll continue answering some of the questions asked in the next chapter as well!


	5. The Show Must Go On

_Disclaimer:_ I do not claim ownership over Wolf's Rain, any cannon characters who may make an appearance or the Wolf's Rain universe. Any characters who are created in this story are strictly figments created for this story.

* * *

_Notes:_ This story takes place after the conclusion of the anime Wolf's Rain and in the modern suburban time period.

I took out the songs for this chapter to get it up faster.

* * *

**Chapter Five**

_The Show Must Go On  
_

* * *

Jay settled onto the cushion of the armchair, the black and white folded faces of the newspaper crinkling in his hands as he searched out a comfortable position.

"It's silly to argue about dreams," Neil quipped from where he lounged, spread across the arm of the old tan checkered couch. It had been an argument surviving the span of the week, and Jay was long ago tired of interjecting to silence the children on it.

"No it's not. Not when you actually have them," Caleb retorted. Neil sat up in his seat, trying to get a better view of him from across the room.

"I do too have dreams-"

"I dream of Paradise," Cailean interrupted, glancing up from the crayon-smeared sketch book, where red and green had somehow found a place amongst one another in the finite threads of the paper.

"Of _what_?" Jay asked, peering up at him over the crossword section of the newsletter. Cailean never actually saw him solve anything, but Jay professed that he liked to look at the questions and answers and learn things from them. From the corner of his eye he could see Caleb look up from his Silverstein cover book to sneer at him.

"I dream of paradise, too," Neil said with a chuckle. "It's called an all you can eat buffet, endless arcades and maybe some girls, too." Jay scowled and rounded on Neil, but before he could reprimand him, Cailean continued.

"No, I mean I dream of a place… I'm not sure how I know. But I know that's it. That place is Paradise…" He turned back to his crayon drawing and pursed his lips, a furtive little expression to enunciate his struggle to form the seamless nighttime delusions into communicable words.

"Paradise, huh?" Jay grunted, flipping the page of the newspaper as though he were still paying any sort of attention to it. "What's it look like?" Cailean frowned at the lumpy shape of a brown wolf on his paper. A mashing of silver crayon pock marks for petals, barely visible against the white of the page, waved on their delicate green stalks in a wind he could almost see in the bend of the blotchy smears.

"I can't tell you," Cailean murmured.

"Yah, 'cuz it doesn't exist," Caleb snapped. He slammed his book shut, reveling in the hard sound such soft papers could make, because even paper seemed to have their sharp edges these days. Cailean fidgeted with the drawing page before grabbing a tiny fistful and watching as the image fractured along the lines of the creases he made.

"Maybe he's right," he murmured, tossing the paper onto the flames of the open fire that crackled in the hearth beside him. The smears of waxy color melted with the heat, running like paint off of the curling black edges of the picture.

* * *

The beauty of the human mind, scientists have attested to for years, is its ability to analyze a situation and, whether they are right or wrong, form an idea about the circumstances that are witnessed and respond to them accordingly.

The real killers start as ideas.

Cailean pivoted on his heel, staggering back from the swinging jaws of the half mad dog. It spun wildly, searching for the missing target, but caught sight of Tate instead.

Before he could regain his attacker's attention, a second member of the pack crashed into Cailean's side, sending them rolling in a writhing heap. The scent of musk and dirt filled his nose, bringing with it a wild smell that drifted into his senses and swelled inside his brain like an overflowing dam.

Static flooded his ears, blocking out the howls of the dog, the feral cries of the pack and his own savage snarling. Muscles constricted beneath flesh and fur and he could feel the raking teeth on his neck and jaws, opening small, bloody cuts, but unable to get a firm enough grip to cause any serious wounds.

The flow of memories, awoken with the bitter tang of blood on his tongue, reminded him of his job. The Mascot—the representation for the Kadzaits, the Wandering Wolves. They didn't need guns, they didn't need bullets. All they needed was fear and the tool with which to inspire it.

Then everything else became obsolete.

Guns couldn't kill if the hands holding them trembled with fear. Knives couldn't cut if the hands seeking them were too slick with their own sweat.

He creaked with the movement, like an old marionette drawing doll, and sweat beaded on his skin from the exertion. It trickled across his collarbone, down his shoulders, soaking into the crusted bandages to sting the broken skin where the stitches had popped.

And then he found the tidy, pulsing throb of the jugular vein, engorged with the adrenaline of the fight. He sank his teeth into the fragile skin, stopping before the threat of death was a reality and held the dog in a scissor-hold that could quickly split the vein with the slightest of exertion.

The animal whimpered, recognizing an imminent end to its life and sinking down to its belly as its tail slipped between its legs. Satisfied, Cailean released his hold, and the sounds of the world seemed to rush back as a gust of wind caught in the tunnel of a building.

Like a ghost in a mansion, her wail raised his hackles and reminded him of the thick, salty-sweet taste of blood on his tongue.

The pack stepped away, for the first time recognizing the scent of wolf.

_Danger._

It was a smell that, in their territorial fury, they had failed to come to recognize before they had attacked.

Cailean turned on the dog closest to Tate and it recognized the threat that he posed that she did not. It turned away from her, squaring off with him, and he could see the red smeared on its muzzle and its lips quirked back to show the yellowed canines. Its tail curled high over its back and its ears followed him as Cailean crept closer.

Tate screamed again, but this time it was not the agonized wail of hurt—it was panic. The sound of it masked the low snarl of the warning bark the moment before the animal leapt. It slammed into his shoulder, splitting the last of the stitches holding the bullet wound shut. Without warning, his leg buckled beneath him, sending a wave of hot agony into the swampy fog of his mind.

But no further attack came. Somewhere there was a sharp yelp from one of the dogs and the tittering silence that seemed to be trademark to all forests slowly crept back in. It might have been seconds that passed, or minutes, but finally he opened his eyes. The bleary grain of the picture focused and he could make out Tate, her back against the tree, her eyes wide and creased with the crinkled folds of fear. The copper stain of blood dribbled slowly down her ankle from a tear in her leg where a handful of skin hung freely. In her hand, she clutched a silver pair of scissors, from which the same red of blood dripped in a steady line into a tiny puddle in the dirt.

He knew that the attack had frightened her. The fact that a wound gaped out of her leg was perhaps as alarming as the assault itself. But she was not staring at the scissors in her hand or the tear in her leg.

She was staring at _him_, and somewhere in her mind she was forming an idea to answer what she had seen.

* * *

There was once a man who, like many others out there, had an idea. In a city that, compared to the rest of the world, was a tiny blip on the tiny radar that usually sits beneath the other tiny radars, he was as unnoticed as the rest of them.

There was something that he wanted, above all else, and that was to see the world become one big family. And why is that, you ask? Because he had none to speak of.

Sunny Set Orphanage was a square, graying building that lay claim to one squeaky swing, a cracked teeter-totter, a rickety slide, a crumbling jungle gym, fifty-nine self-proclaimed unadoptable children and approximately four acres of dried yellow grass fenced in by one long stretch of chain link fence, which was perhaps the only new part of the entire structure. The yellow walls flaked, the linoleum floors peeled and the screws seemed to have a knack for unscrewing themselves from the door hinges.

At the age of three, the nineteen year old prostitute attempting to raise Igor Tamaska brought the resigned youngster through the creaking chain link gates and dropped him off on the yellowing cot that he would spend the next fifteen years' nights sleeping on.

And in fifteen years' time an idea began to blossom in his mind, joined by fourteen others who shared it.

* * *

The shards of glass dug into the palms of his hands as he swept them over the asphalt, grunting as he struggled out of the twisted debris of the truck. Smoke clogged his lungs and stung his eyes, hanging in the air as though it were not yet bade to depart. It obscured the world like an opaque blindfold, hiding away the dingy gray lumps of the big city on the horizon, but he could still make out the tail end of the black Nissan disappearing towards district five, coughing black smog out of its tail pipe.

Cailean staggered towards the driver's side of Jay's old pickup, kneeling down by the shattered window frame to peer inside. Caleb's eyes were rolled up into his head and a thin trickle of blood slid lovingly down the side of his temple.

"Hold on, Caleb. I'll get'cha out," Cailean grunted. He reached inside, craning awkwardly to catch Caleb as he clicked the seat belt and he tumbled down into his waiting arms. He didn't make any sound, but at least his chest lifted with the struggling pants of breathing.

"There's a hospital down Olive," he thought out loud. It was more than a mile away, but he couldn't leave Caleb there. Slinging him across his back, he hunched over and began to walk.

* * *

She had fainted, but whether from fear or loss of blood he was not sure. So, just as he had the day he had carried his adopted brother two miles to the hospital, he pulled Tate across his shoulders and began the long march to the village. An hour meant that it couldn't be more than three miles away.

His arms burned by the time he reached the small town, stumbling in on the scene of a group meeting. They turned to hear the scuff of his shoes on the dirt road. He didn't need the smell of the people to know what they were feeling—it showed well enough on their faces, even in the dying light of day. Alarm, shock, fear… anger.

"She's hurt," he mumbled, turning his gaze to the rocky pathway, unable to meet the eyes of the men and women who stared expectantly at him. "Please take her."

As though he had given them some signal, they rushed forward, wary, at first, before concern for Tate brought them close enough to pull her off his back and shuffle her to relative safety. Cailean straightened, relieved to feel the tension in his spine released after the long hike.

"Thank you." It was a man who spoke, his mouth hidden beneath his bushy black moustache. He stepped forward and clapped a hand on Cailean's shoulder, staggering him with the weight of it. "Tate means a lot to this town. She's the only young'in we've got left. But… seeing how's it's your fault in the first place."

Cailean barely had time to register the comment before the fist connected solidly with his jaw, jerking his head back on his neck. The world tilted on its axis, but disappeared long before he hit the ground.

* * *

"We don't know how he's going to be yet, sir. Please just relax." The nurse reached out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but Cailean shrugged it off.

"What do you _mean_ he's in a coma?" he snarled, and she shrank back behind her clipboard.

"Sir, maybe you should go home and get some rest. If you just fill out the paperwork, we'll give you a call when he wakes up." But Cailean wasn't listening. He turned on his heel, his shoes squeaking on the shined tile floors as he stalked through the sliding glass doors of Olive General.

"Sir! Sir-" He ignored the cries of the nurse and broke into a run, shoving his way through the manicured hedges. He didn't know what he was planning on doing, but he couldn't go home to Jay now. One thing was for sure: he knew who was to blame for Caleb's condition, and he knew where to find their hideout.

* * *

_Note:_ Sooo many apologies for how long this chapter took. It was a lot tougher than it normally is, but I wanted to be sure that I got up the best material I could offer. So, enjoy the chapter!


	6. Break Stuff

_Disclaimer:_ I do not claim ownership over Wolf's Rain, any cannon characters who may make an appearance or the Wolf's Rain universe. Any characters who are created in this story are strictly figments created for this story.

* * *

_Notes:_ This story takes place after the conclusion of the anime Wolf's Rain and in the modern suburban time period.

I took out the songs for this chapter to get it up faster.

* * *

**Chapter Six  
**

_Break Stuff  
_

* * *

"Daddy, I have something for you," Caleb mumbled, clutching the folded sheet of crinkled drawing paper to his chest. If Jay hadn't liked his father's day present, then maybe he might want something like what Cailean had made for him.

"What the fuck do you _mean_ foreclosed? I made the payment!" Jay snarled into the phone that he held pressed against his ear. "No! No, you listen to me! I _know_ I put the money in on time."

"Dad, I-" Caleb held out the drawing, but Jay paced past him, reaching into the cabinet. He set a clay dish on the counter, soft enough not to harm it, and dropped a couple of slices of bread onto it as he rummaged through the cupboard in search of the peanut butter.

"What do you _mean_ laundered bills?" he growled, slamming the plastic jar down. Yet the container caught the edge of the clay plate, sending it flipping over the wood edge of the countertop. It hit the floor, and Caleb watched as it shattered, splintering shards of clay that spread around his feet, skittering to a stop at the carpet of the hallway. "God damn it! Caleb, don't move. I'll get a broom. Yah, this is a bad time. I'll call you back."

Heedless to Jay's warning Caleb turned and fled the kitchen.

"Caleb! I told you to- Ah, forget it," he snapped. Jay dropped the phone onto the table, kneeling to pick up a shard where his son's tiny, fragmented fingerprints lingered in the clay. With a sigh he swept the pieces into the garbage, certain that it could not be fixed, and set back to the task of making lunch for his kids.

* * *

Igor Tamaska pushed the empty swing again and watched it rock forward in its leisurely, graceful arch before sliding back towards his waiting hands. It creaked with the motion, ringing eerily as the nuts and bolts that just barely held it together cried out with its use.

"What are you doing?" Igor pushed the swing again before turning towards the speaker. He was large for his age, dotted with freckles on his white face. A shock of brown hair stuck up from the crown of his head, despite the fact that he reached up more than once in the following silence to press it back down.

"Playing," Igor stated, pausing just long enough to push the vacant swing again. "Wanna play, too?" The boy puffed out his cheeks thoughtfully, his lower lip squelching out much farther than necessary for the simple question.

"Nah, I'll watch," he said as he settled down against the metal post where the swing set was imbedded in the dirt. "Those seats hurt my bum."

"You don't sit in the seat, silly."

"Isn't that what you do when you swing?"

"Only if you want to do it like everyone else," Igor replied. The swing arched back and he gave it another shove. "You don't want to be like everyone else, do you?" The boy's mouth scrunched, mirroring the image of the face he had made before.

"No, I 'spose I don't," he grumbled.

"You're a smart boy," Igor said, and for the first time in so long he grinned back at another child. But the looked appeared somehow frightful on him—feral. With his wild black hair and startling blue eyes it completed the image of the untamed boy named Igor. Still, the child smiled at the compliment, blinking away the startled expression that had initially taken over.

"I am?"

"Of course you are. I know it's hard to think anything of ourselves here." Igor let the swing continue its momentum, this time without his aid. "The caretaker's aren't mean, I guess, but they don't think anything of us, either. We have nothing if not each other, right?" The boy looked up at Igor, his brown eyes curious of where the other orphan was taking this conversation, or perhaps where he came up with such things. The other kids had always said that Igor was strange, and so in the five years he had shared sleeping quarters with him he had not taken the opportunity to actually speak to the other boy. "What's your name?" Igor asked, crouching down in front of him.

"Jeric."

"Come on, let's give it a try, shall we?" Igor stood up, offering a hand to Jeric. The other boy hesitated, but it would certainly be nice to have a friend after being alone for so long. After a moment's hesitation he took Igor's hand, and the boy helped him up. Pulling him over, he gestured to the still swinging seat. It had been beginning to lose momentum, but as it neared Jeric he shoved it hard, sending it jerking wildly forward, like the convulsions of a dying animal.

"This in't any fun," Jeric mumbled. Igor tilted his head, not quite understanding what he meant.

"But it isn't about fun, Jeric."

"What's it about, then?" Igor pouted.

"It's about dedication."

* * *

The dusty little house seemed the same since the last time he had visited it, smelling strongly of wood and earth. A small spider made homage in one corner of the high beamed ceiling to a spot on its web where it had caught a struggling fly. Thriving—everything in the little town seemed to thrive, from what he had seen, one way or another. But that was when the dissimilarities began to creep in—this wasn't the same home he had been taken to the first time around. There was far more dust in this house, and the grimy smell of blood clung to the sheets of the cot he lay on.

"So you're awake, then?" Cailean craned his neck to find the source of the sound, but the angle of the cot prevented a good look. With a grunt, he pushed himself up, struggling until he leaned against the wall the cot was pushed against. The speaker was an elderly man, whose gray hair was cut short and wore a neatly trimmed moustache.

"Does every man in this town have an animal growing on his lip?" Cailean grumbled, seating himself cross-legged as he offered a helpless smile. His arm was stiff, trapped as it was in a sling and the pain in his shoulder was something he would definitely feel again in the morning. The man sat back in a wooden chair that creaked as he folded his leg over his knee thoughtfully. He leaned his elbow on a desk filled with papers and took a bite out of a banana he must have been eating with his lunch. Now that he could get a better look, the room was small, occupied by no more than a cabinet, the desk the man sat at, and Cailean's cot. A door on the far wall must have led to the next room, and it was slanted open enough to let a tabby cat slip through it, tail waving in the air over its back.

"You're an interesting character, you are," the old man said, his voice a little worn with age, but still clear and distinctly professional.

"How so?" Cailean asked, his curiosity piqued in spite of himself. He glanced down at his arm and lifted it, attempting to pull it out of the sling.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. There was a lot of damage to the nerves. I'm not sure you'll ever have dexterity in that hand again." Cailean cringed, settling his arm back into the sling and glancing up. A cold sweat began to bead between his shoulder blades at the news.

"What about painting?" The man turned towards him, sliding around in his chair as he furrowed his brow.

"You don't look like much of a painter to me," he grumbled.

"What _do_ I look like?" Cailean asked. The man scoffed, twisting his moustache as he wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"You look like a bad person. I've seen a lot of bad people in my days. Mostly city folk like yourself. I've seen 'em, tended 'em, saved their damn worthless lives. And _you_ look like one of 'em." Cailean rocked back in his seat, raising his eyebrows at his latest companion. The silence stretched on uncomfortably, enunciated by the gentle ticking of a wall clock somewhere in the next room.

"So you're a Doctor, then?" Cailean asked.

"Damned right I'm a doctor, you-"

"Thank you."

"What?" It was the doctor's turn to be alarmed by the turn of events. His bushy grey eyebrows quirked upward, surprised by the response.

"I just thanked you," Cailean replied, situating himself into a more comfortable position on the bed. "Seeing as how I'm in your house and not dead and you're a conveniently placed doctor, I'm guessing you're the one who fixed this." He shrugged his shoulder, attempting to enunciate his meaning, but winced as he felt the sting of the freshly tended area.

"My name's Mockic. Doctor Mockic," the man huffed, turning back towards the array of papers strewn across his desk. Cailean glanced out the window, surprised to see the trees looming close by the home. It seemed strange that a plant was anywhere near a household structure. Time stretched on for eons, making him feel ancient before he finally chose to speak.

"I paint scenery," Cailean said. Dr. Mockic grunted and turned back towards him. His eyes were crinkled with confusion, but they lingered with an inquisitive nature. "I do, I paint scenery. But my scenery has always been the city, so it's always ugly. I'm not sure I'm even capable of painting anything beautiful anymore." Mockic twitched his moustache thoughtfully and reached up to scratch at his chin.

"You know what's really beautiful?"

"What?"

"Self-sufficiency," the doctor replied. Cailean's brow furrowed in consternation, working deep lines between his dark brows. The doctor shuffled a few papers on his desk and dropped his banana peel into the trash before he turned back towards him. "That's what this town is, don'tcha know? We make our own goods: our own food, our own fabrics, our furniture-"

"Where's this going?" Cailean murmured, unable to contain his impatience any longer. Dr. Mockic quirked a brow, a curious smile touching his face as he peered over the rims of his reading glasses at the lad he had saved. He reached towards a flat silver pan that sat on one corner of his desk, pinched something in between his fingers, and lifted a wiry piece of tangled black thread off of a pile of similar strands.

"-even our own thread." He dropped the piece back onto the silver tray and tapped his pen against his chin. "Of course, I'd recognize my work anywhere. How is it that you got that wound?"

"I got sh-"

"Shot? Yes, I thought so." The doctor turned in his seat, redirecting his attention back to the job he had been completing at the desk. "You're free to move around the town, but I suggest you don't overdo it."

"Can I go? Home, I mean?" The doctor made a noise in the back of his throat and didn't look up. Cailean struggled off of the cot, careful as he could manage not to jostle his arm.

"The mayor is deciding if you should be punished," Dr. Mockic replied, scratching some notes down onto the paper. Cailean ambled towards the door, pausing to brush his hands over the wood frame and releasing the scent it held. It didn't seem to matter where he was—his future would always rest in the hands of another.

"Fine. I'll be back in a bit."

"It's funny," Dr. Mockic mumbled to himself. It was loud enough for Cailean to catch, and he paused in the doorway, his hand lingering on the wooden frame.

"What is?"

"How you're seldom right when you judge someone by the way they look."

* * *

It wasn't as simple as a drive-by attack—the Kadzaits rarely left the city if they could help it. Somehow the Fifteens had anticipated it; somehow they had thought to set it up. But how had they _known_?

Everyone knew of the other's hideouts, but no one simply marched into a nest of snakes. Code dictated that whatever fights took place, they took place outside of the den. After all, they couldn't really afford to have the police led straight to their homes, could they? It just didn't work that way.

It was a tiny bar nestled in the center of district five before Igor Tamaska scared away the owner and took custody of it to serve its purpose as the hideout of the Fifteens. Squat, insignificant, and as filthy gray as the rest of the city, its faded blue lettering had peeled away with time, leaving the grimy black outlines to stand out vividly against the stucco.

Tattered, torn—a madman wearing his bandages with fury, Cailean did not hesitate to push through the bar door and into the midst of his enemies. They were startled, nonetheless, by his appearance, much more so when his jaws closed on the throat of the nearest Fifteen and tore through the paper-thin skin and iron-corded tendons until his fangs found the artery he sought.

"No guns!" Cailean heard the shout as though through the tunnel. While the bellows and cries and flurries of movement broke out amongst the Fifteens, that voice stood out above the rest, like the whistle of the train coming down the tracks as it headed for him.

The men moved as though through molasses, scrambling across furniture, reaching for something to defend themselves with. Amongst them, Igor did not move—instead he watched, a curious sort of fascination in his blue eyes. But it wasn't Igor that Cailean focused on. For there, standing right at his side, was a man that he never expected to see in the Fifteen lair beside the Kadzait's most hated enemies.

A stool crashed down on Cailean's back, and he staggered under the weight of it. When he didn't fall immediately it landed a second time, shattering into pieces, and the room began to close in on itself, slipping staggeringly into perpetual darkness.

"Don't hurt him. He's just a kid…"

"For now…"

* * *

_Note:_ Hope you guys are liking it so far! Please read and review! =D


	7. Mad World

_Disclaimer:_ I do not claim ownership over Wolf's Rain, any cannon characters who may make an appearance or the Wolf's Rain universe. Any characters who are created in this story are strictly figments created for this story.

* * *

_Notes:_ This story takes place after the conclusion of the anime Wolf's Rain and in the modern suburban time period.

I took out the songs for the chapters to get them up faster.

* * *

**Chapter Seven  
**

_Mad World  
_

"All around me are familiar faces,  
Worn out places, Worn out faces,  
Bright and early for the daily races,  
Going nowhere, Going nowhere."

-Michael Andrews "Mad World"

* * *

"Sir, you're going to have to come with us." The man in the uniform tugged his hand cuffs off of his belt, but he didn't look away from Jay, as though afraid he might strike at him if he broke eye contact. But Jay didn't move—he stood as if someone had snuck in moments ago while no one was looking and carved a replica of him from wax, leaving it to stand with a shiny nervous sweat in his place. Finally, slowly, he blinked and his mouth worked as he fought the color rising in his face.

"What for?" Jay asked, his voice far quieter than it should have been.

"You've been charged with the illegal acquisition of money and linked to criminal activity within the area. We'd like to take you in for questioning, sir."

"You can't take Dad!" Caleb snarled, wrinkling his face at the police officer. He wrapped his small hands around the fist his father's had formed, and tugged gently at the thick corded forearm.

"Neil," Jay whispered. "Take your brother into the kitchen and make him some lunch, please." Neil stepped forward uncomfortably, and took Caleb's little hands in his own.

"Come on, Caleb. You heard Jay, let's go."

"No! I don't want to go with you," Caleb whined. "Dad, tell him I'm not going with him. I want to stay with you!" But Jay shook his tiny hand away and Neil wrapped his arms around Caleb. He managed to lift him off of the floor just enough to hobble to the kitchen, disappearing behind the door, heedless to his brothers shrieking and pitiful kicking.

Cailean watched from where he still sat on the floor, holding tiny fistfuls of crayons over his pad of drawing paper, as Jay was led away in handcuffs.

* * *

The door slid on its oiled hinges, clicking shut behind him with the wafting scent of cut wood, as though it had been freshly sawn from a tree only days ago to find its place on the doctor's homely little cottage. A curl of inky gray smoke coiled from Doctor Mockic's stack towards a blue sky dotted with blots of tufted white clouds.

Somehow, beyond the overpowering spice of the forest trees, he could still smell the distinct odor of civilization—the greasy stench of the mill and the power generator, the stale aroma of garbage that had yet to be toted to a landfill. Even though the air was much cleaner than that of the city, it was still tainted by the tang of humanity. And yet it belonged there, somehow.

Nothing had changed from the brief glimpse he had gotten when he'd first dragged the girl from the comfort of her home. The squat little cottage-like houses were home to an older crowd than he had ever seen in the city before—humans of ages that no longer survived in the poisons of metropolitan life.

Cailean hunched his shoulders and slipped off of the doctor's landing, cringing at the feeling that tingled up his shoulder in response to the movement that grated on the sore nerves. As he headed towards her cabin he felt the stares of the townsfolk as they paused long enough amidst their daily chores to watch him, be it borne of curiosity or from the grief he had caused them only the day before. Cailean paused at the top of the ramp that led onto her front porch, took a breath, and rapped lightly on the door.

It flung open quickly, and Cailean stumbled back to avoid getting hit with it, making a mental note for future reference that doors in the town swung out and not in. The man in the wheelchair sat in the rectangle of the doorway and jerked the wheels forward, knocking the edge of the chair into Cailean's knees and forcing him to stagger back.

"What are you-" Cailean stammered.

"Who do you think you are?" the old man snarled. He attempted to shove Cailean back again, but this time he stepped aside, avoiding the attack.

"What do you-"

"You attack and kidnap my daughter, bring her back with half of her leg torn off and then have the balls to come up to my door as though you're a welcomed _guest_?" His voice rose in volume and Cailean wobbled awkwardly off the edge of the porch, attempting to escape the old man's wrath.

"Please, I just want to get home," Cailean pleaded. The old man effortlessly slid down the ramp, pivoting around the corner frame and rounding on him.

"Home? Home!" he snorted. "You're _home_ should be a nice cozy cell in that god forsaken city! You should be-"

"You know where it is, then?" Cailean interrupted, leaning forward. The man wrinkled his nose as he wheeled towards him.

"Yes I know of that filthy place and its filthy people. That's why _we're_ out _here_! To get away from there! And yet people like _you_ always seem to find a way to spoil things time and time again. You-"

"Daddy, stop it." Cailean glanced up towards the open doorway. Tate leaned against a crutch and her leg was wrapped in a thick layer of bandages. She hobbled halfway down the ramp and leaned over them, but didn't spare Cailean as much as a moment of her attention. "I told you he wasn't the one who hurt me. Actually…" Finally, her eyes fell to him, pausing in contemplation where, beneath the innocent brown irises an idea had formed. "He's the one who saved me."

"Tate, it's time for you to stop being so naïve and reckless." Her father rounded on her, turning the wheelchair effortlessly on the gravelly road. "You're still not old enough to go wandering into the forest, let alone near the road! You could have gotten hurt." Tate leaned back, pursed her lips thoughtfully and glanced at the little town that was anything but sleepy.

"Dad, I like to explore. Besides, I'm old enough to know when a situation is-"

"You're fourteen, Tate!" he snapped. She sighed, closing her eyes and offering a shake of her head.

"I'm fifteen, Dad. Nearly sixteen. I can handle a little exploration."

"Tate, get inside." He glanced balefully at Cailean before wheeling his chair back up the ramp. "We'll discuss this in private." Tate peered at her father, watching him pass before she turned her brown eyes to Cailean.

It wasn't fear that he saw there—it was curiosity.

* * *

"Come on, Caleb! The water's great!" Cailean cried from where he bobbed in the deep water of the flooded culvert. Monstrous storms often came in by sea, passing over the city and raising the water level higher than halfway in the cement basins before blowing over the mountains by morning to leave the day sunny and uncomfortably warm.

"I don't want to. I didn't even want to come," Caleb snapped from where he sat as far away from the edge of the incline as he could manage. He carefully flipped the page of his book, gently so as not to tear the precious paper. Neil paused next to him and dropped his shirt on the pile of Cailean's clothing.

"You never want to do anything with us," Neil said, lifting one side of his mouth in a lopsided scowl.

"Maybe if you guys actually did something intelligent for once I'd join in," Caleb growled. "Besides, swimming in the culverts is disgusting." Neil stared at Caleb blankly, as though he wasn't sure whether or not he felt like being insulted by the comment. He turned away after a moment of hesitation, dropping his trousers onto the pile with the rest of the clothes.

"You're so lame, Caleb. No wonder Jay's so disappointed with you. You're no fun," Neil said. The color rose in Caleb's cheeks and he snapped his book shut, pushing himself up to his feet.

"I'm going home," he grumbled. Neil stepped forward, however, wrapping his arms around Caleb's chest and squeezing him tightly. "What're you doing?" Caleb squeaked, writhing as he tried to escape his captor's embrace.

"I'm going to make you more fun," Neil laughed. Arching his back just slightly, he lifted Caleb off of the ground and swung towards the culvert.

"No! Let me go!" Caleb cried, panicking and renewing his efforts to escape. He dropped his book onto the ground, hoping to save it from a similar fate, and winced at the gravelly crackling sound it made when it landed on the cement.

"Neil, maybe this isn't a good idea," Cailean called from below. But Neil had already reached the edge of the ridge and launched Caleb far into the channel of water. He arched overhead, a spinning mass of struggling limbs, before splashing headfirst into the dark water, his mouth opened wide in a scream that had lodged too far into his throat to find an escape. He writhed beneath the surface a moment, struggling ineffectually as he tried to reorient himself as to which way was up.

And then he began to sink.

* * *

Cailean stretched out, peered over the edge of the windowsill and tried to get a good look at the room. It looked like any ordinary bedroom should—or at least how he imagined one might look, seeing as how he hadn't had one of his own before.

Flecks of dust had settled onto the window pane, and as they caught the sun they reflected the light, shining golden in the glow and making it difficult to make out the movement inside the room. As his fingers brushed the sill they released that same pungent smell of wood and Cailean watched as a tiny spider marched unhesitant along the timber beam, lifting its little black legs to begin to hoist itself onto his fingers.

In that instant, much to his chagrin, the window slid open, blowing the little spider off of his hands. It tumbled back onto the sill, struggling to reorient itself. Cailean dropped down and stared up into Tate's face, who quirked a brow, but didn't seem quite as surprised to see him as he was to see her.

"I have a deal for you," she started. Dropping her legs over the edge, Tate noticed the spider and absently picked it up to set it higher on the sill. "Catch me."

"What?" Instead of answering, Tate hopped down. She nearly slammed into him, though he managed to half catch her with his free arm and ease her onto the ground.

"Thanks for the warning," he mumbled. "I thought you were using a crutch?" Cailean glanced down at her spindly legs where the bulky bandage was still wrapped tightly.

"Oh, that? I was milking it. Dad won't try so hard to stop me if he doesn't think I can't hobble to the front door without making a huge racket," she said, her playful grin widening as she reached up to pull her hair back into a high ponytail. "Mockic said it wasn't as serious as it looked."

"So what about this deal?" Cailean lifted a brow as Tate pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"Look, you want to get out of here, right?"

"Yes…" he tried to keep the suspicion out of his voice.

"Well, I want to see the city. Help me see the city, and I'll take you there."

"Wait a minute—I thought you said you didn't know how to get there?"

"No, because you got us lost. But I do know how to get to the road from here, and the road leads to the city," Tate said. Cailean breathed a sigh and glanced at the forest carefully before turning back to her.

"That's it? That's all you want? I take you for a tour and then you find your own way back?"

"That's right. Deal?" Tate snapped her hand out to him without any hesitation. Cailean watched it silently, as though trying to glean some sense of answer from the network of creases and lines in her palm.

Finally, he reached out, took her hand in his, and shook on it.

* * *

Cailean struggled to pull Caleb's dead weight onto the cement. Horrified, Neil helped to drag the sodden body to higher ground.

"Fuck, he's not breathing," Neil whispered as he knelt to gently slap at Caleb's pale cheeks. His mouth lolled open and his eyes remained shut.

"Move," Cailean gasped, shoving Neil out of the way as he placed his hands on Caleb's chest and pushed in.

"Are you doing it right?" Neil asked.

"I don't know. Now shut up." Cailean leaned back as Caleb jerked, coughing up mouthfuls of water. He rolled over onto his side, pushed himself onto all fours and staggered upright.

"Caleb! I'm so sorry," Neil began, reaching out to grab his arm. Caleb dodged away from him and snatched up his book, intent on escaping. Cailean darted forward, however, and caught a hold of his wrist.

"Look, Neil didn't mean to hurt you. We're brothers—he'd never-"

"Don't touch me!" Caleb shrieked, wrenching free of Cailean's hold. "You're _not_ my brother. You're a fucking monster Jay picked up off of the road. So just stay _away_ from me," he snarled. Cailean jerked back, snapping his mouth shut as he watched Caleb spin away from him.

"Caleb! I just wanted to include you!" Neil snapped. Caleb rounded on him, and his mouth peeled back in a smile as he barked a sharp laugh.

"Well, don't! I don't _want_ to be included. Not by _you_."

"What do you mean?" Neil snarled, taking a step towards him. Caleb mimicked the step in the opposite direction.

"I don't trust you, Neil. I don't trust you and I don't like you. So just stay away from me." Clutching _The Giving Tree_ in his arms, Caleb turned and ran, leaving small puddles of river water with every step.

* * *

_Note:_ I hope that you guys enjoyed the chapter. (This one was kind of hard to right, so I apologize for how long it took me to get it up.) Please let me know your thoughts, critiques and questions or just let me know how I'm doing so far!


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